


Ra'vnne Sisters

by KaminoanBat



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: flagrant ignoring of actual canon, mentions characters from swtor in passing, mild self insertion?, swtor mentions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2018-11-05 23:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaminoanBat/pseuds/KaminoanBat





	1. Chapter 1

_“No! I won’t just sleep in carbonite while my sister needs me to protect her!” Aedrae’s eyes flashed as she crossed her arms._  
  
_“She is Jedi-” Khem’s deep voice rumbled as he tried to placate her._  
  
_“I don’t care!!” Aedrae interrupted, stomping her foot. “She is still my sister! I have to protect her!”_  
  
_“Aedrae, Taoe would want you safe with her.” Tharan’s voice was more gentle, persuasive. “It won’t be long- just until the Jedi can destroy the Plaguemaster controlling the masters. Taoe needs her strength, hence the carbonite, and she needs you.”_  
  
_\----_  
  
_Aedrae lowered herself into place, looking up at the people who would be guarding her and her sister one last time._  
  
_“If I wake up and find anything wrong with Taoe, I will kill you all.”_  
  
_They all exchanged looks before nodding as one._  
  
_“Nothing will happen.” Taoe’s tech friend promised- Aedrae could never remember his name- before he hit the button to submerge Aedrae._  
  
\----  
  
Obi-wan carefully picked his way over the skeletons and bone dust on the floor. The scale of this battle must have been enormous. Despite the rather horrifying environment, he still looked just as ease as he would’ve been in any Coruscant tea shop. Looked being the operative word; he was disturbed by the scale of all the death in this place. There was no livid stench of recent decay, at least, but the dusty, slightly sweet scent of old rotted bones felt dangerous in a different way.  
  
“I got a question, General,” Cody grunted, kicking aside a skull that tried to lodge itself around his foot. “Why’d the Jedi make you come here? You’re important, and all that fancy stuff. Shouldn’t someone else be handling this?”  
  
“They asked me to come, Cody, because no other Jedi could be spared.” Obi-wan glanced back at the commander with a raised eyebrow, delicately avoiding the bony jaws of an acklay corpse. Now, what was that doing here? “And I must say, this is rather looking like it requires investigation by a Jedi Master.” His men made no more comments, although he did hear Boil swear viciously when a hand fell on his shoulder and stuck there for a minute. And Waxer’s subsequent snickering at his brother’s expense.  
  
Obi-wan’s jaw tightened as the bodies started getting less frequent, but more heavily armed. There was a Mandalorian- missing helmet and head- sprawled out on the floor next to a body in a deteriorating robe. Not Jedi, but the imagery wasn’t lost on him.  
  
He narrowed his eyes, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Seems whatever was, or is, at the end of this cave was highly sought after.”  
  
“Looks like a lot of people died on the way,” Cody said, peering over his general’s shoulder.  
  
Waxer and Boil both made vague agreements. Wooley seemed too busy watching for ghosts to care about the present. He wasn’t entirely wrong there, Obi-wan thought grimly.  
  
“Hopefully whatever they were after is still here,” Obi-wan murmured, speeding up his pace. “I’d hate for us to end up a few more skeletons on the floor.” The Force in this place was strange - an amalgamation of Light and Dark that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He could feel the humming currents of both singing, whispers and eddies pulling at his mind with soft, sad urgency.  
  
They walked on, steps echoing eerily in the gloom. The men all had their rifles ready, while Obi-wan’s hand stayed firmly on the lightsaber at his hip. As they approached the end of the hallway there were almost no corpses- skeletal or otherwise. Cody gave him a look, pursed lips and grim eyes, before they emerged into a huge chamber that looked like a primal temple, the walls painted and etched with images. The echoes grew louder, the scent of ancient dust rising. “Do you hear it?” Obi-wan said under his breath. “Surely you can, it’s very loud.”  
“Hear what, General?” Cody said. “You know we haven’t got the sense for all that Force business.”  
In the middle of the temple was a shrine, with three decomposed bodies laying around it. They looked more peaceful than the bodies in the halls, laid down like they chose their resting place at the foot of this shrine. And even though their leathery skin stretched tight and discolored over their bones, Obi-wan got the sense from their faces that these had not fallen in battle.  
From what he knew about bone structure, there was one near-human (or possibly just human) body, a trandoshan and the third was a species he didn’t recognize.  
  
“General?” Cody nudged him in the side with his elbow. Highly irreverent of course, but that was just Cody’s way.  
  
“Yes?” Obi-wan replied without looking up from the third body. Would it be disrespectful to take these bodies for study? He was incredibly curious now.  
  
“Look up.” Cody said. Obi-wan glanced back at his commander, shooting him an unimpressed look before he looked up - and his eyes widened.  
  
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Oh, I see.”  
  
The shrine had been built around two huge slabs of carbonite- a woman frozen in each. They both had their hands clasped together in front of their bodies, and a lightsaber on their belts. One had her hair tied back, the actual style hidden in the carbonite, and wore long robes and a skirt. She looked serene- but pained, like she had been hurting when she was submerged.  
  
The other had short hair that hung in frozen strands around her face. Her cheeks were adorned with outdated cybernetics and her left hand balled in a fist, the right one curled tightly around her left wrist. She looked angry, a slight scowl and press of her eyebrows barely noticeable in her frozen state but definitely there. She wore armored pants and boots, but a looser top with some leather plating in places and a hood around her neck.  
  
Nestled between the two slabs was an old data tablet and a portable holocomm, both abnormally old.  
  
“Let’s see what we have here.” Obi-wan muttered, carefully picking up the comm. It was hundreds- if not thousands- of years old and covered with dust. As he maneuvered it, it clicked and whirred on.  
  
The hologram projected was life sized, a woman with a neat bob cut and an outdated dress. The strange hologram was pink rather than the usual blue.  
  
“ _Who are you?”_ She demanded, staring straight at Obi-wan. _“How did you get past Khem and Qyzen? Where’s Tharan? Answer me!”_  
  
Obi-wan glanced behind him. “Are you talking to me?”  
  
“Sir, she’s a hologram.” Cody pointed out. The hologram huffed.  
  
_“I am talking to you! What are you- Jedi? Sith? Oh, please tell me you aren’t a Revanite, they are so annoying.” She flipped her hair. “Come on, speak up!”_  
  
Obi-wan hesitated. “I’m Obi-wan Kenobi, Jedi Master.”  
  
“ _Oh good. A Jedi. Does that mean you got the Plaguemaster? Can Taoe come out if the carbonite now? I so miss our girl talks. Where is everyone?_ ” She looked around and her eyes landed on the bodies. _“No! Tharan?”_ She walked over to the human body. “ _Oh, Tharan, what happened?_ ” She reached out to touch it, her hand just glitching through the leathery skin.  
  
Obi-wan hesitated. “Ma’am perhaps you can help us understand better. What is this place? Who are these ladies in the carbonite and who are you?” Cody rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything- verbally at least. His body language said plenty.  
  
“ _I’m Holli. Tharan developed my coding- I’m a sentient hologram. One of a kind.”_ Holli spun in a quick circle, her skirt flaring out like a fan. “ _That’s Taoe._ ” She stopped spinning and pointed to the woman on the left with the calmer expression. “ _She’s a Jedi Healer- a Sage and very strong._ ” That explained the strong sense of Light then. “ _She had to be encased in carbonite when her body started to crack under the pressure of shielding so many Masters from the Plaguemaster trying to turn them to the Dark side- shouldn’t you have already been told this?”_  
  
Obi-wan frowned. He had never heard of any of this and there was so much dust- “Holli, when did all of this happen?”  
  
“ _3,624 BBY. Why do you ask?_ ” Holli tilted her head curiously.  
  
Obi-wan’s eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh my.”  
  
“ _What? What is it?_ ” Holli’s face morphed into worry with a quick rearrange of pixels.  
  
“My dear, it’s been...it’s been thirty-six hundred years.” Obi-wan tried to be as gentle as possible but that was just a hard thing to put delicately. He wasn’t sure if holograms could lose their color, but Holli definitely paled.  
  
_“Three...three thousand years?”_ Holli asked weakly.  
  
Obi-wan nodded. “I’m afraid so.”  
  
Holli slowly ran her hands through her hair. “ _I-I need to wake up Taoe-”_  
  
“Holli wait!” Obi-wan reached out to her without thinking. “They might need medical attention after being in carbonite for so long. Come back to our ship- we can help.”  
  
Holli hesitated, looking between the bodies and the slabs of carbonite. _“Alright. Let me resync with the datapad, who knows what Tharan’s been up to since he turned me off.”_ While she did that, Cody gave orders to the boys to get the girls down and on antigrav.  
  
By the time they got Holli, Taoe and the third woman to the ship, the sun on the planet was setting fast.  
  
“I should inform the Council of what we found.” Obi-wan murmured distractedly, wandering to the bridge of the small ship.  
  
While he walked away, the troopers took Holli and the carbonite women to the medbay.  
  
“So who do we wake up first?” Cody asked Holli, his arms crossed over his chest.  
  
_“Taoe, definitely. Aedrae is liable to hurt someone if we wake her first.”_ The hologram answered. Cody nodded and hit the command to ‘melt’ the carbonite, med-droid at the ready.  
  
\----  
  
Taoe jerked up, gasping for oxygen. Her head spun as she sat up and she lifted a hand to her head.  
  
“Ooh, what happened?” She groaned softly, slowly opening her eyes. Holli and a man she didn’t recognize watched her warily.  
  
_“Oh Taoe! Thank goodness you’re alright! You’ve been in carbonite for three thousand, six hundred years!_ ” Holli exclaimed as a med-droid checked Taoe’s vitals.  
  
“3600? You’re sure?” Taoe stared up at Holli. “Then Tharan and Qyzen-”  
  
_“Dead.”_ Holli shook her head sadly. “ _They protected you to their last breath from the looks of it._ ”  
  
“And what of Aedrae?” Taoe carefully stood up, only wobbling slightly. The man in armor caught her arm to support her. “Thank you, sir.” She murmured.  
  
“ _Aedrae was also put in carbonite. Tharan’s idea._ ” Holli gestured to the other slab. Taoe nodded and moved towards it.  
  
“You woke me first?” Taoe ran a hand over the frozen face of her sister.  
  
_“I figured you were less likely to react aggressively to being woken up after thirty-six hundred years.”_ Holli shrugged.  
  
“You’re likely correct.” Taoe smiled. “Ready?” Holli made a vague gesture.  
  
“ _Do we really have much of a choice?_ ” Holli sighed. “ _Are you really going to wait for us to say yes or no?_ ”  
  
“Not particularly.” Taoe smiled and awakened her sister with a hit of a button. Aedrae bolted up with a loud gasp, her chest heaving as the droid fussed over her.  
  
“What in the Nine Hells-” She snarled, reaching for her saber. Cody reached for the pistol on his hip.  
  
“Peace, sister.” Taoe said calmly, stepping in front of Aedrae. “It’s been a long time.”  
  
Seeing Taoe seemed to get Aedrae to relax. “What do you mean it’s been a long time?” She growled.  
  
Taoe and Holli exchanged a look.  
  
“Aedrae. It’s been 36 hundred years.” Taoe said as gently as she could, putting her hand on her sister’s. Aedrae is silent for a while.  
  
“No wonder Khem’s slacking off. Bastard must be dead by now.” She said softly. Taoe made a comforting noise and hugged her.  
  
“ _Qyzen and Tharan are dead too._ ” Holli sniffled and sighed. “ _It’s just us three girls now._ ”  
  
They stood in silence for a while before Holli muttered something about needing to transfer her system to something more up to date and disappearing. Taoe turned to Cody.  
  
“Is there somewhere we can rest and process all of this? It is a lot to take in.” She asked softly. Cody nodded sharply.  
  
“Right this way, sir.”  
  
\----  
  
Obi-wan peeked into the room Cody had moved Aedrae and Taoe into.  
  
“May I come in?” He asked softly. Taoe lifted her head, Aedrae laying down with her head in Taoe’s lap.  
  
“Yes, of course. Come in Master Kenobi.” Taoe smiled slightly. “Holli and the commander filled us in.”  
  
Obi-wan nodded slightly as he stepped in. “I informed the Council about your...situation.” He said politely folding his hands in front of himself. “They wish to speak with you, Master Taoe- as soon as possible. I told them you were resting first before you were ready to hold any kind of meeting.” He dipped his head to her.  
  
“Thank you Master Kenobi. This is all….very strange. It’s so different from everything I knew. I’m still adjusting- we both are.” Taoe put her hand on Aedrae’s darker shoulder. “We…” She started.  
  
“We just need some time.” Aedrae interrupted. “To think. Alone.”  
  
“Aedrae-” Taoe scolded her softly. Obi-wan chuckled.  
  
“It’s alright, I understand. I’ll leave you two be for now.” He dipped his head again and left, thoughtfully running his hand over his beard.  
  
Outside he met up with Cody.  
  
“They’re very strange women, sir.” Cody murmured.  
  
“Very strange indeed.” Obi-wan agreed. “The Force is odd around them. Aedrae is dark and Taoe light- but in balance.” He stroked his beard as they walked the halls together.  
  
“Aedrae is a Sith?” Cody narrowed his eyes.  
  
“I believe so yes. But Taoe is most certainly a Jedi. Curious, isn’t it?” The red-headed Master mused.  
  
“Dangerous I’d say.” Cody rumbled. “Do you think we can trust them, General?”  
  
“We’ll just have to wait and see.”  
  
\----  
  
Taoe stood in silence on the bridge, watching the stars blurr as they raced through the galaxy at hyperspeed. Aedrae was resting and Holli was recharging.  
  
“Quiet, isn’t it?” Obi-wan murmured behind her. “With everyone sleeping.”  
  
“Easier to meditate.” Taoe dipped her head to him. “Should you not be sleeping as well?”  
  
“Shouldn’t you?” Obi-wan countered, his hands in his sleeves.  
  
“I have slept for 36 centuries. I want to be awake for a while.” Taoe laughed softly. Her long dark brown hair was loose, hanging past her hips. “So much has changed and yet so many things remain the same.”  
  
“You mean the Council?” Obi-wan raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Precisely.” Taoe nodded. “They are exactly how I remember- just with different names and faces.”  
  
Obi-wan smothered a laugh in his throat. “I see. So you spoke to them?”  
  
“I did- and I probably could have told myself what they told me.” Taoe shook her head. “As soon as we exit hyperspace, Aedrae will take a shuttle and leave. We will say it was stolen while we slept.”  
  
“Oh?” Obi-wan blinked and turned to Taoe. “Why?”  
  
“I’m sure by now you have discovered Aedrae is strong in the Dark side.” Taoe looked down then to Obi-wan. “Sith or not, she’s my sister. I won’t let the Council harm her. So she will leave and not come with us to the Core.”  
  
“You are very loyal to each other.” He mused.  
  
“You find it odd.” Taoe smiled. “That a Jedi and a Sith can be so close.”  
  
“It is strange to me, yes.” Obi-wan stroked his beard. “You two are so different and yet-”  
  
“Balanced.”  
  
“Exactly.” The two Jedi exchanged a look.  
  
“Are you going to stop her?” Taoe reached back to tie her hair up as she spoke.  
  
“How can I? I will be sleeping.” Obi-wan chuckled. “Goodnight, Master Jedi.”  
  
“Goodnight, Master.” Taoe smiled and watched him leave. “All will be well.”  
  
\----  
  
Aedrae was gone when the ship awoke, along with the ship’s small shuttle. Neither Obi-wan nor Taoe seemed concerned.  
  
Holli chattered excitedly about codes and algorithms, the comm she had been transferred to at Taoe’s hip.  
  
“We will reach Coruscant soon.” Obi-wan put his hand on Taoe’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”  
  
“Have I got a choice?” She twisted her hair up into a bun. “Holli, would you mind staying with the Commander while I speak to the Council?”  
  
“ _Of course not. Just do come back and get me?”_ Holli waved her hands. _“You know how men are- even the handsome ones.”_  
  
Taoe laughed. “Of course Holli.”  
  
She handed the comm to Cody, before following Obi-wan off the ship to the Jedi Temple.  
  
“The last time I was here, this was ruins to be rebuilt.” Taoe murmured.  
  
“A lot has changed.” Obi-wan replied.  
  
“And much has remained the same.” Taoe said steadily. “Thank you Master Kenobi. I will see you shortly.” With that she bowed and went into the council room.  
  
\----  
  
Taoe reemerged from the Council room looking irritated, her arms crossed. How dare they treat her like a child- like a padawan! She was older than all of them combined, technically. The nerve-!  
  
She paused in her fuming to take a deep breath. _There is no emotion, only peace_. Taoe reminded herself. A Jedi must stay calm. She splayed out her hands in front of her with a quiet sigh.  
  
“ _You accompany Master Obi-wan Kenobi until you have had a chance to adapt to your new surroundings.”_  
  
_“As an apprentice?”_  
  
_“Not quite. You will still have the resources available to other Jedi-”_  
  
_“But Master Kenobi will still be in charge of me?”_  
  
_“For lack of a better way of phrasing it, yes.”_  
  
_“So an apprentice.”_  
  
_“Offended, you are. Understandable this is. But for safety, of yourself and others, this is for.”_  
  
_“Do you think I would hurt someone?”_  
  
_“Not intentionally. But it is still better to be safe than sorry.”_  
  
_“I….I understand, Masters. Good day.”_  
  
Perhaps storming out of the Jedi Council wasn’t a good idea. Taoe needed to calm down, find her head again. She found herself walking towards the training rooms- this temple was laid out similarly to the one she had trained at on Tython. Taoe paused by the training rooms, watching younglings practice under the careful watch of a master. Would this little ones see the galaxy divided by a false treaty as she had? Taoe didn’t want to think about it. So she continued on, going to the library.  
  
The quiet air reminded her of home, Tython really, the soft murmur of Jedi around her. It was comforting. She settled down at a dataport and toyed with it, doing research on what she could on what had become of the galaxy since she had been in carbonite. There was… a lot. She finally stepped away from the dataport after a while, her stomach twisted in knots.  
  
“The council suggested you’d be here.” Obi-wan spoke from behind her. Taoe turned.  
  
“Master Kenobi.” She murmured. “I assume the Council told you about their decision?”  
  
“They did.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “But I will be assisting you, not the other way around.” He smiled. “Come- I do believe Holli is sharing stories of Nar Shaddaa with my troopers and I doubt anything good will come of that.”  
  
Taoe laughed and stood up. “As long as she leaves out the part where I impersonated a Sith to get us past security.”  
  
“You did _what_?”


	2. Chapter 2

Aedrae settled down behind the controls of her new ship, her cheeks aching after her new cybernetic upgrades. The old tech made her stand out more than she liked and the shuttle she had taken from the Jedi’s ship would only get her so far. So that meant new implants and a new ship.

She missed her pilot- Revyl, his name was Revyl- and having company on board. Or maybe she just missed having someone to drink with, discuss the options of a Sith Lord and her pilot in the galaxy and the comfort of another in her bed. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Aedrae rubbed her cheeks absently as she set the ship to Nar Shaddaa. With any luck, a Sith Lord’s cult would still be whole- or at least someone would have kept up with her legacy. Hopefully. Her new ship growled as it took to the stars and she stood up to stretch her legs. It would be easy to forget who she was, where she had come from. Start a new life. Again she thought of Revyl, how he talked about the stars….

Aedrae shook her head. She couldn’t keep doing that if she wanted to start anew.

\-----

“-then Anakin-”

“He didn’t!!”

“He did!!”

Taoe laid her head against the cold metal of the wall behind her, only half listening to Ahsoka and Holli. Her mind was more present in the Force, desperately searching for something familiar.

She found nothing. Eventually she pulled herself back into her own body and mediated on herself for a moment before standing and leaving the room to go wander the ship. To clear her thoughts naturally.

Clones walked by her, pausing to salute. She dipped her head to them gracefully.

To be called Commander was still odd to her- Jedi were never officers in war before, not even against the Sith. Perhaps more had changed than she thought.

Eventually she found herself in the ship hangar, watching white armor painted with blue and yellow mill around. Not one of them seemed to pay her any mind.

“You look distracted, sir,” Cody spoke from behind her. Taoe turned, startled, then sighed.

“You frightened me Cody- and don’t call me sir.” She nevertheless smiled at him. Out of everyone, Cody was somehow the easiest to talk to. Maybe it was because he had met Aedrae, if only briefly, and he wasn’t upholding the same codes as Obi-wan had to.

Sometimes Taoe wondered if she still held the Code to heart as she used to.

“Sorry- you just looked particularly pensive.” Cody nodded towards the hall, so they could talk more in private. He tucked his helmet under his arm. Taoe followed him, letting her hair loose.

“So what’s troubling you, si- Taoe.” He leaned against the wall of an empty corridor. Taoe sighed.

“Aedrae.”

“Has she contacted you?”

“No- but I wonder if I did the right thing encouraging her to leave. She’s a powerful Sith in her own right and she’s just as out of place as I am- if not more so.” Taoe worried at her hair, twisting and pulling at it. “I at least have the Jedi Order.”

“And you’re worried you just unleashed all of her power on an unprepared galaxy.” Cody said matter-of-factly. Taoe met his eyes hopelessly.

“What if people- innocent people- die because I was trying to protect her?”

Cody was quiet for a moment.

“Then it happens.” He said simply. “If it does happen, if she kills people, then you track her down and stop her. That’s all you can do,”

Taoe blinked at him, then laughed. “That’s both comforting and not comforting in the least at the same time. Thank you, Cody.”

He nodded slightly and looked pensive himself.

“My turn- can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You call me Cody. No Commander, just Cody- in fact you do that to everyone, even your superiors. And you don’t let anyone call you sir or Commander. Why?”

Taoe paused and shook her head. “I know you as your own person, not as your rank. And I refuse to be a compliant force who just accepts that the war tries to make me into something I’m not. I’m not a Commander- I’m a healer, first and foremost. I treat the wounded, not lead good men to their unnecessary deaths.”

Cody was quiet for another minute.

“Sound logic.” Was all he said. They stood in silence for a while before Taoe realized something.

Cody’s presence had become familiar to her, almost as familiar as Tharan’s or Zenith’s. She kept her realization to herself though.

Cody already knew she trusted him.

\-----

Nar Shaddaa was as bright and obnoxious as Aedrae remembered. Blinding lights, half dressed people, alcohol, gambling and the ever present smell of blaster fire.

She found it strangely like coming home.

She stepped over the fresh corpse of a gangbanger delicately, finding a soft couch in a quiet corner where she could observe. She quietly rejoiced that she had hidden her lightsaber- the Sith were not around anymore and Jedi weren’t welcome in places like this.

She leaned back, arms folded behind her head in false laziness. She heard the soft beep in her inner ear that mean her cybernetics were scanning the crowd of the club, processing and analyzing threats. Then she ran through the information that she now could remember, despite never hearing it beyond the beep of her robotics. No one that was a major threat, not to her at any rate.

“You look lonely.” A feminine voice said as a body joined Aedrae on the couch. She opened one eye to look at the pretty mirialan girl who sat next to her. “Want some company, pirate?”

Aedrae chuckled softly. She never thought of herself as a pirate. She was a slave, then a Sith. But she liked pirate.

“I’m not going to turn it down.” She drawled with a smirk. The girl giggled.

“Where’s your accent from? I don’t recognize it.” She draped herself over Aedrae’s shoulder.

“Drommand Kaas.”

“Spooky place. I heard it’s haunted.”

“I’m sure some places are.”

“Must be pretty brave to live there.” The girl said earnestly, fiddling with the hem of Aedrae’s shirt.

Aedrae laughed softly. “Must be.”

  
They talked for a while- Aedrae liked the company and the girl confessed she liked taking a break from men who grabbed at her.

“My shift is almost up, pirate. Maybe I’ll see you around again?” The mirialan said as she stood up. Aedrae smiled.

“Maybe.” She chuckled. And with that, the mirialan woman was gone, and Aedrae was alone again.

\-----

“Looking for something Sith?” Revyl’s voice was deep and rasping as he walked up behind her, his arms naturally wrapping around her waist.

“I am actually. Something you stole.”

“And what, do tell, did I steal?”

“My heart.”

The two of them laughed as he dipped Aedrae to kiss her.

“I must’ve nabbed it between the sieges and the murders.”

“Must have.”

\-----

Taoe’s lightsaber sliced through the droids with ease. She had not missed fighting, but Obi-wan was with Skywalker, so she had to defend their makeshift medical tent where Kix and the other medics were working.

Eventually the waves of droids stopped- Taoe took that as the others were successful- and she returned her lightsaber to her belt. Then she entered the tent to help with the healing.

By the time she was finishing the last trooper, who furiously thanked her for knitting his tendons back together, Obi-wan, Skywalker and their unofficial mutual padawan Ahsoka were back.

She came out to meet then but something made her hesitate.

“Is something the matter?” She asked as she walked to Obi-wan. He looked more concerned than usual.

“On our way back the Council called.” He said slowly. “There’s been strange surges in the Dark side on Korriban and Nar Shaddaa.”

Taoe frowned. “Korriban and Nar Shaddaa?” She said slowly. Obi-wan glanced at Anakin and Ahsoka before he gently lead Taoe away from them.

“Do those planets mean something to you?” He asked her softly.

“Not to me specifically- but Aedrae trained on Korriban and she lived on Nar Shaddaa for some time.” Taoe said worriedly. “Has the Council already pinpointed her so fast?”

“They aren’t sure what it is, so she’s safe for now.” Obi-wan assured Taoe. “But it looks like they might send someone there.”

Taoe was quiet for a second. “Call the Council.” She said softly.

“Nar Shaddaa will be the first stop.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

_Sith are cruel._

Aedrae was born a slave, to a woman who refused to tell anyone who the father was.  
Aedrae was Force sensitive- her mother belonged to the Empire.  
This made Aedrae a Sith.

_Sith do whatever it takes._

Harkun mocked her. Called her slave, even though she had earned her title as acolyte. Aedrae held her head high, cybernetics whirring.

Let him mock. She could take far worse than the snide opinions of a man who couldn’t admit his own failures.

_Sith only care for power._

Khem wasn’t exactly a friend. Aedrae hated being called Master- the word made every inch of her buzz with anxiety and the urge to run as far and as fast as she could.

Tatoonie wasn’t suited for running.

_Sith are merciless._

“...and likely eaten alive. I wouldn’t call that getting away.”  
“Still. Would’a liked to shoot their eyes out of their heads.”

Andronikos didn’t call Aedrae master. He called her Sith- but not with respect. More like…endearment.

She would need to get used to that.

_Sith are manipulative._

“You tricked me!” Ashara cried. Aedrae barely kept herself from flinching back from the out cry.

Soon Ashara would call Aedrae Master as well, and Aedrae tried to convince the child that not all was as it appeared.

_Sith control their underlings._

Talos didn’t really need Aedrae’s help to work out the problem. He just needed another set of ears. Still. It was nice, to sit in the cargo bay on stacks of crates with trinkets and artifacts they’d picked up, and talk archaeology or whatever happened to be on the human’s mind.

Talos never called Aedrae master, and she always had time for his theories and curiosities.

_Sith follow tradition._

Xalek called her master, but he hated it as much as she did. After a while, he stopped and began to call her Lord as the others had.

He was her apprentice, and her friend.

_Sith obey._

“Darth Umbrox, rise, and take your seat in the Council.”

“Darth Umbrox.”

“D-Darth Umbrox, my lord.”

Umbrox was just another name, another title- slave, acolyte, apprentice, lord, master, Umbrox.

Those who mattered knew her as Aedrae when she went into the carbonite with a sister she never knew she had.

_But not all Sith._

  
———

_A Jedi is kind._

Taoe was a baby, left on the steps of the Jedi temple on Alpheridies. Taken in by a master there, her force sensitivity set her on the path to becoming a master herself.

_The Jedi have limits._

She was taught well on Alpheridies. So close to Mandalore, war torn three hundred years before, she was raised on tales of what made the Jedi who they are while training in the ruins.

_A Jedi cares for those around them._

Taoe was a healer- she knew that before she even held a saber. A healer….and eager to learn.

Tython would help her learn.

_A Jedi shows compassion._

Taoe never quite understood Trandoshan philosophy or their great Scorekeeper, but she knew Qyzen needed hope.

“Earn your points back.” She said. “If you wish for a companion, I would be honored to travel with you.”

She had bowed- and he had bowed back.

Honor could be restored.

_Jedi are honest._

“..a sith?” The imperial messenger said doubtfully as he eyed Taoe’s brown robes.

“Yes.” She lied, trying to keep her tone harsh. It was hard- the boy was barely 18 years old. “If you truly doubt me and continue to interrupt, I can prove it.” Her hand was on her hip- he backed off after that.

Taoe hated lying.

 _Jedi respect their peers_.

“You are certain this will work, Tharan?”

“Oh absolutely. Holli ran the equations herself.”

Taoe shot the holographic woman a look before she focused and moved the appropriate gears with the force- and was rewarded with a balloon of goo on her head.

The entire cargo bay, as well as Taoe and Tharan, was smeared with the goo by the time she had her revenge.

_Jedi help however they can._

Healing the masters was wearing Taoe thin- everyone could see it. She couldn’t stomach anything with flavor, she seemed to tremble just getting out of her bed and every step she took seemed to take her closer to collapse.

“Rest.” Her friends urged- but she couldn’t. There was always another master to heal, and another.

It was her duty.

_Jedi listen._

It was Taoe’s master from Alpheridies that suggested it. She had gone home to make sure none of them had been affected when she saw how weak the healing had left her former apprentice.

“Carbonite will keep you alive and retain what little strength you have.”  
“Assuming she survives the reanimation process.”

“She is a Jedi. She can survive it.”

 _But some rules are meant to be ignored_.

“This is stupid, Taoe. You could die.” Aedrae’s hand wrapped around Taoe’s shoulder.

“I just got you. I don’t want to lose you already.”

“You won’t. I swear.”

———

Taoe woke first, gasping for air. A hand steadied her- she blinked up at the figure of a man in white and yellow armor holding her up.

How long? She tries to ask, but no sound comes out at first. Taoe winced.

“What happened?” She rasped instead, looking to Holli. The hologram looks upset.

She almost misses Holli’s explanation in her rush to get to Aedrae’s side- still frozen.

Three thousand years.

Now, more than ever, Taoe needed her sister.

  
_One cannot exist without the other- light and dark._

_There must be balance._

 


End file.
